The Truth About the Rain
by ItsADuckStupid
Summary: The truth about the rain is how it falls. Vaughn reads a letter from Sydney.


**Title:** The Truth about the Rain

**Author:** Duck

**Summary:** The truth about the rain is how it falls. Vaughn gets a letter from Sydney.

**Timeline:** Post "The Two"

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing, especially not this title. It's a song lyric, SAG gave it to me. 

**A/N:** This has been bugging me for a few weeks, and it slowly emerged during my Algebra 2/Trig class. I always get inspiration in my math classes. Don't ask, cause I have no idea why. Ok, the whole letter? Not mine. That would belong to SAG, to whom I owe mucho. I just gave her my pathetic drafts and she concocted this beautiful letter. Much love, my dear. Much love. And of course, I have to give my thanks to the bestest twin and firnd ever, my dear sister Neumy. She got all excited when I told her I was writing something and made me send it to her piece by piece. She's my muse, my inspiration. Love you so much sweetie. It's all for you. Remember, the loneliest goat sees the last sunset last.  :)

The Truth about the Rain 

The rain stopped an hour ago, leaving the roads clean and saturated with puddles hidden deep in potholes just waiting for a random tire to splash through. If I were to tell you Sydney Bristow was dead, most likely you would assume that she lost control of the wheel and slammed into another car, or if you were particularly morbid, believe that she drove into an icy river like her mother before her. But the rain attributed nothing to her death, only a gray depression that may have been a factor in the decision that ended her life.   
  
I present you with an image; a man with bloodshot eyes, a trench coat that is thoroughly useless for the rain has stopped, and a letter that burns a hole in his pocket, scorching his chest. He thinks this is the only heat that he can feel; his blood ran cold several hours ago and has been coating his veins with ice, creating a heaviness in everything breath he inhales.  
  
Rubbing his eyes, he tries to dispel the redness he knows is apparent, but only in vain. His hand rises to the doorbell shakily; he lowers it, takes a deep breath, and tries again. Success, although he's wishing, hoping, praying that they're not home, that he won't have to inform one of his best friends of something he's already heard once. But Eric Weiss is a man short of luck, something he learned a long time ago.  
  
"Weiss?" Michael Vaughn stops and takes a good look at his friend, shocked by his haunted and worn expression. "What happened?" Deep down he knows something's wrong with Sydney, even though his brain informs him that she returned safely from the mission in Buenos Aires with barely a scratch.  
  
Weiss is strong, always has been, but his voice refuses to come to him. His hands can only reach blindly for the envelope in the inside of his coat. Fumbling, he nearly drops it, but manages to catch hold of the smooth paper. He stares at it, and the words come. "I found her...I tried so hard Vaughn. She just...she was gone."  
  
Lauren comes up behind Vaughn as she hears Weiss's strangled words. She sees the back of her husband's neck straining and even though her mind tells her its absurd, she thinks she hears his carefully mended heart break. She can't help him, not when the woman he loved so deeply and grieved so long for dies once more.  
  
Vaughn can't move, not even when Weiss hands him the envelope with his name written in Sydney's neat and precise handwriting. "There were three. One for Jack, Will, and you."  
  
Dead fingers accept it, and his mind is gratefully blank. He can't see Weiss, nor the dripping awning behind him, only a flashback of memories, all of them, again. He's been through this before, although it doesn't hurt as much this time. He isn't as venerable to her now because he has built a wall to keep her out of his marriage, out of his soul. That, however, doesn't stop his heart from breaking, the same cracks split open through all the mending and healing it endured over two years.   
  
He sees her bruised, beaten, full of fire and redemption. He sees the bloodmobile, the warehouse, a 7-11, and Griffith Observatory. All of it, a flash flood of images and emotions he locked up and buried a long time ago. Sydney, bitching at him, crying to him, yelling, embarrassed, a long embrace, worried eyes, saving him, all of these pictures of him flash by. Dinner, the promise of a night spent in her loving arms, blood on his hands, and then, oh then, one of the most sensual moments he's ever had in this lifetime, followed by another even closer one. He feels her touch tingling everywhere, tastes her flavor on his lips, smells the flowery perfume she wore only sometimes.   
  
How long he's stood there, starting at absolutely nothing, he's not sure. But Weiss has left, and he's grasping Lauren's hand so tight his fingers feel they will break soon. He whispers a quiet apology before heading out into the slick street, feet pounding into the saturated asphalt.   
  
He has no real sense of direction, but after a long walk in the crisp post rain air, he finds himself wandering down PCH, crossing the street and walking down the length of the Santa Monica pier. The letter is a constant presence in his mind, but he refuses to acknowledge it until he finds a place suitable to open Sydney's last words, and he wants to do it in a location with meaning. He finds himself at the end of the pier, letter burning in his pocket.  
  
By the time he arrives, it is roughly four in the morning, and he is grateful that the only sound reaching his ears is the melodic crashing of waves against the barnacle coated concrete posts below him. The salt air stings his eyes and nose, but the aroma is one that will stay with him forever; post rain ocean breezes are ones you never forget.   
  
The envelope is unsealed, the flap is only pushed inside, and he can't help but wonder if she was that rushed to let go of life. He expects a note telling him how sorry she is that she can't be strong, or maybe damning him for causing her to resort to this. He gets neither.   
  
  
_Vaughn,  
  
I never thought I'd have to succumb to this. To be sitting here, surrounded by things that I don't recognize, picture frames, books, all things that are made to replace those that I once had, writing to you my final goodbye. I suppose it was easier before, to just disappear. No mess to clean up, no goodbyes to be made. But I guess this time, this time I take the harder way out. This time I'm stopping to say goodbye.   
  
Maybe it would be easier if I had come back to something more. To a life. But that door closed, and I returned to but a half-life. I was no longer living a life, rather watching from the sidelines. That's not a life. That's a memory at best. I wish I could say I was leaving for reasons that were nobler than what they truly are. But deep down inside, I know that I can't claim to be some sort of martyr. I could claim to be leaving because everyone around me would be better off, and while I know this to be true, I'm leaving because it's just too hard. It's just too hard.   
  
I haven't asked you for anything since I've come back, and you don't owe me a thing. But I can't help but ask that you do this one thing for me. Visit Danny. If only once a year. My only regret is that by leaving I won't be able to keep his memory alive. I ask that you do this last favor for me. To make sure that the world remembers that there was a man named Daniel Hecht who was a sweet caring man, who's only crime was falling in love. I never blamed you for moving on. And I never stopped loving you. If anything, it was the memories that I had that kept me going as long as I did. Who knows, maybe now I can find that peace I've been searching for. Maybe I'll even find it with Danny.  
  
Don't ever forget who you are. Don't ever forget the kind of love you can offer. And don't ever stop being the man I know you are. Live your life with Lauren. And be happy.  
  
I will always love you._  
  
  
He reads this slowly, words swimming across the page making it so hard to comprehend the enormity of what has occurred. At least she's with someone who can love her openly, he thinks bitterly as the page crumples in his hand. He should keep this, he knows, as proof when he rolls over in the morning in a cold sweat believing it was all a nightmare but the mist weakened tears so easily from his grasp. He watches it fly across the gray sky down to the green-blue polluted waters, and he can't help but visualize her ashes billowing from the marble urn as he turned it over the side of the boat, whispering her name over and over until the tears clouded his eyes and he could no longer see anything except a giant blue blur.   
  
If I were to tell you that Michael Vaughn is so devastated he throws himself over the side of the Santa Monica pier, you might believe me, that is, if you did not know Michael Vaughn. No, he does not commit suicide, although for a few brief minutes he contemplates it. He does, however, spend the early morning hours walking along the bike trail that runs along the ocean letting the salt winds blow through his hair and cleanse his aura.   
  
He is calm, too calm, he thinks, for everything, for losing her again-no, he corrects himself, he didn't lose her because he didn't have her, not this time.   
  
He always thought she'd die on a mission; doing her patriotic duty and dying bravely so some other agent could escape to safety. Death by fire or death by suicide never crossed his mind.   
  
The universe has a sick sense of humor; he can't help but muse as he watches the waves crash onto the brown sand below. The sun has risen now and it bathes the world in a pink orange glow as it continually gains height in the now clear sky. The rain clouds of last night have vanished leaving the morning cheery and crisp. This is the way the world mourns-ripped apart and bleeding in the night and clear skies in the morning.   
  
An early morning wind wafts by him, and with it a whisper of goodbye. This is his truth; the letter could be forged but in his heart and soul he knows her spirit has left the land of the living. Last time her presence stayed with him, and although he credited to massive grief and insanity, he knows now it was the sign that she was still alive. There is no presence now and he has no doubts.   
  
Sydney Bristow is dead. Again.  
  
But this time, she won't be coming back, won't throw his world off kilter and out of balance once more.  
  
Sydney is dead.   
  
She's with Danny in a beautiful place free of the evils that this life constantly plagued her with. He is jealous of the paradise she's in but more so of the man holding her.   
  
Syd is dead.   
  
And for the second time, he wishes he were too.

**1/1******


End file.
